Treaties must be one of the trickiest areas of legal research. About five years ago I attended a treaty course, but I felt that I needed a refresher session. In addition, the previous course had barely mentioned the internet, so I was interested to learn about the various web sites which are now available.

The talks were given by Michael Bowman, co-author of Bowman and Harris' Multilateral treaties index and current status, and his colleague Paolo Galitzzi from the University of Nottingham.

After a few technical hitches, Michael kicked off with a very useful introduction. He explained about the rather primitive private international law system, the Vienna Convention governing the law of treaties and the treaty process from the drafting committees through to final acceptance. He also outlined some of the complicated treaty terminology, the rules governing entry into force and various problems associated with treaties, for example the fact that some treaties don't actually have an official title! Finally, he addressed some other issues, including territorial scope and the duration of treaties.

Michael's talk was followed by a number of questions. One delegate was interested in the enforcement of environmental treaties, and another asked about the recent handover of Hong Kong to China and how that would affect its existing treaties. The question on everyone's lips, though, was "is there going to be another edition of Bowman and Harris?" Michael didn't rule out the possibility but stressed that a new edition would involve an enormous amount of work!

Paolo continued the evening with a session primarily based on the internet sources available. He guided us through various web sites including the American Society of International Law (ASIL) (http://www.asil.org), and the UN Treaty Collection (http://untreaty.un.org/) which currently contains 40,000 treaties plus details of all parties, declarations, reservations etc. The ASIL web site contains a number of very useful links to the collection of treaties, telephone help lines and various government and international organisations. It also has an excellent introduction to treaties and treaty research. Paolo pointed out that the majority of recent treaties have their own web sites, but gave a word of warning about unofficial web sites. He stressed the importance of using the authentic text of a treaty, particularly if it is to be used in court.

It seems that treaty research is becoming much easier with greater amounts of material available online, but sometimes it can still be a struggle! There is no central depositary for treaty information although there are several specialist projects in existence, including Michael's environmental law work at the Treaty Centre in Nottingham. Michael and Paolo concluded by answering a few more questions and discussed the difficulties associated with finding national implementation information.

The evening ended with some lovely food and wine, courtesy of our hosts, Baker and McKenzie.